


Link

by IChallengeMyFate (Ealdremen)



Series: Missing Link [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-14 08:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3404315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ealdremen/pseuds/IChallengeMyFate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robin has chosen to remain in the world, but the ramifications of that decision are not quite what either she or Lucina could have predicted. Both of them stranded in a world where they are wanted yet do not truly belong for one reason or another, they must reconcile their choices and strive for a new future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Together

**Author's Note:**

> This is essentially part 2B of "Missing Link" -- 2A being the other half and companion piece, "Missing". Both these divergent timelines, each splitting off from a single decision, will parallel each other in different ways, and reading both of them is essentially reading the whole story. Despite AO3's categorical insistence otherwise, "Missing" does not take place before "Link," nor does it have to be read first.

Together, Robin had told her, they could find a better future – one for both of them. There would be no shadow of Grima hanging over the world. Lucina and all of her companions could rest knowing that they had succeeded, triumphed over the greatest evil their world had ever known. At last, they would be able to lead the normal lives the future had denied them. The more Lucina had thought on this future, the more she realized it would not be the same if they were not together.

So when Robin, bleeding and bruised and unable to keep herself upright, had insisted on martyring herself to eliminate Grima once and for all, to give them that future, it was Lucina who took her hand. Robin had said not to stop her – that this was what she had to do. Lucina had only responded:

“Together.”

Together, they stood there, Lucina clasping Robin's hand. They loomed over Grima's avatar, the source of all this misery. The woman who was both Robin and not Robin had stared at them, a cruel smile forming on her face. She reiterated that she would only return stronger in the future, and she cackled at the flash of pain on both their faces when she pointed out how selfish this was.

Lucina held Robin's body steady as she called back to Chrom. As if leaving a daze, hardly able to believe Robin would willingly stand down, he moved past them. With a set jaw and narrowed eyes, he pulled the gleaming Falchion forth and plunged into the avatar's body. It stabbed through to the body of the Fell Dragon, and the resounding screech thudded in Lucina's ears well after the beast was dead. She held tight to Robin, as though fearing if she let go, she would lose her.

But the avatar's deranged laughs could not be stopped. Whether it was an illusion or the woman's lingering spirit, Lucina did not know, but she heard the woman laugh again and again. When she glanced over at Robin, her weary face framed by messy hair, she could tell that Robin also heard it. Even if now the world was open up to them, at last at peace, it didn't feel that way. Faintly, she could hear someone calling both their names, but neither of them moved.

Together, they defeated Grima, but together, they knew it would not be forever.


	2. What Remains

There was a celebration of Grima's demise almost sooner than Lucina would have imagined news could break out. Virion claimed that he had been saving these certain wines for a particular event, and he could think of no finer occasion than their triumph over the fell dragon. After such a long war, the Shepherds hardly needed a reason to celebrate and relax. Lucina noted that the various couples among their ranks spent more time with both each other and the other family they had from Lucina's now-averted future.

That was, all of them save her and Robin.

“What's going on between you two?” Cynthia had asked, tilting her head.

In retrospect, Lucina should have expected Cynthia to notice that she and Robin had been almost avoiding each other and hardly speaking to one another since Grima's demise. The two of them, along with Chrom, effectively defeated Grima. Cynthia had probably been watching to see what new developments this heroic tale would have.

Lucina wasn't entirely sure how to answer. She fixed her gaze instead with a wooden post behind Cynthia, looking past her as she answered that things were just busy and hard to get used to right now.

If Cynthia noticed her evasive look, she didn't comment – only shrugged and wandered off in the direction of the festivities at the center of camp.

Though he was less direct about his reasons for it, Chrom was also a more regular sight now in the wake of Grima's demise. He asked her a few times a day if she wanted to spar, often also reminding her that if something was bothering her, she could always talk to him about it – they were family, after all. That part, he said with such a genuine smile that Lucina knew he meant it. But gossiping about Robin to her best friend felt... wrong, even if she wanted to ask if Robin had been avoiding Chrom, too, in the aftermath of their decision to only temporarily seal away Grima.

Lucina suspected that Chrom was also wondering the same thing about her, but he feared the answer too much to ask.

An oncoming rainstorm, though, halted the Shepherds' return home. They had to pitch camp early in the day, and the inevitability of rain meant that the festivities couldn't continue late into the night as they previously had. But when Lucina tried to slip away and help organize the various armaments, Olivia caught her on the way there and asked if she had spoken to Inigo recently. When Lucina answered she hadn't, Olivia – her stuttering growing more pronounced the more she seemed to worry she had already lost Lucina's attention – asked if Lucina would want to see a new performance piece that she and Inigo had been working on.

“Even if, ah... even if tonight's celebrations have been called off..,” Olivia managed. “...Well, Inigo thought that perhaps you... you might want to celebrate anyway – in a different way? I-It won't be... loud or anything like that... The only music will be Brady's violin...”

Lucina declined and excused herself. Realizing there was nowhere she could go in the camp without someone accosting her, she made her way for the edge of camp. She took longer detours, circling around tents whenever she heard someone's voice or approaching footsteps. But she caught the sound of her name as she passed near where Yarne and Noire were deep in conversation.

“–Lucina is probably just trying to keep us from worrying,” said Noire quietly. A talisman hung between her clasped hands. “I just... I wish she trusted us enough to talk to us about what's wrong.”

Yarne sighed, his whole body leaning into the gesture. “I mean, it's one thing not to tell me, but she isn't even talking to anyone in her family... You saw how Morgan was acting. She's almost as sad as they are.”

“I-I wonder if... seeing everyone acting so happy is what's making Lucina sad,” Noire murmured, her lip quivering. “After all, if Grima will eventually return–”

“–it's like if we just put off the world's extinction instead of stopping it?” Yarne asked. His ears pricked up, and Noire nodded. He gave another long sigh and a slight shudder. “Maybe that's it...”

Lucina strode onwards. She thought she saw Yarne's ears flick at one particularly heavy step, but he didn't give any indication that he knew she was there. Perhaps that was for the best. Eavesdropping just because she heard them talking about her was hardly going to convince them that there was nothing wrong.

She bypassed where Gerome and his wyvern were standing guard at the edge of camp, her steps less coordinated now that she was out of the sensitive taguel's hearing range. All that mattered was getting out of here.

“Lucina?”

She turned. Robin stood behind her, several tomes stacked in her arms. Her pale hair almost seemed to reflect the dull red glow of the setting sun, and Lucina noticed that the bandages she had seen Libra put on Robin shortly after the battle ended were gone. How long had Robin's wounds been healed enough that she no longer had need of the bandages? Not knowing the answer made her more anxious than it perhaps should have.

“Hello, Robin,” Lucina said. It sounded like she was greeting a stranger and not the woman whose bed she had shared for months now.

The silence between them was palpable. Lucina could hear evening crickets begin to chirp, having for all the world a greater conversation than she could muster to have with anyone right now, much less Robin. Robin's fingers drummed along the spine of a book in her hands.

“I'm sorry I haven't made time for you recently,” said Robin, lowering her gaze until they rested on the book atop the stack. “Organizing things – it's a pain, and it feels like everyone except Frederick and maybe Cordelia is too busy getting drunk to help out. Things keep getting lost.”

Lucina knew a great deal, especially as of late, about lost things, but she instead said, “I see.”

“Do you have time to talk?” Robin asked.

At this, Lucina shifted uncomfortably, her heels digging into the dirt. “I wouldn't want to distract you from your duties.”

Robin frowned, biting her lower lip so slightly that Lucina wouldn't have noticed had it not been a tic she was accustomed to seeing whenever Robin was mulling over various plans of actions or tactics. As she expected, Robin's index finger started to tap against the side of the book as it would on a table if she were studying the map of a battlefield.

It certainly felt like a war they needed to navigate carefully, in any case.

“Do you _want_ to talk?”

The question caught Lucina off-guard, and her mask broke for a moment. It was the slightest tremble in her hands, the way her hand rested on Falchion's hilt as though the Hero-King could give her strength – and she knew Robin had noticed in the way her gaze fell on Falchion as well.

“...I do,” said Lucina evenly, figuring that this was the most honest thing she could say. 

Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. Robin set the books down, and Lucina watched her adjust their position to keep the imbalanced pile from falling over.

“It's going to rain soon,” Lucina advised. “Perhaps you ought to place those inside a tent.”

It was so strained and formal that she could mentally hear Severa railing against her for still insisting on keeping up this charade of stoicism. However, Robin merely nodded in silent agreement and approached the nearest tent. She pushed the tent flap aside and placed the stack of books inside, shifting them in a bit further with her foot. When she was done, she returned to Lucina, her face as much of a mask as Lucina's.

“The hill outside camp might be nice to talk on,” Robin suggested. 

At this, Lucina only nodded, and the two set out.

The wind rustled the tall grass as they ascended the small summit. Everything seemed washed out with a fading, red glow from the sun. As they reached the top, Lucina turned around and looked down at the camp, which was oddly still. Perhaps without the promise of a celebration tonight, they were all instead retiring to their beds early, hoping to wait out the storm and awake the next day without dark clouds hanging over them.

“I'm sorry,” said Robin, jarring Lucina out of her thoughts. When Lucina looked over to her, Robin sighed and avoided her gaze. “I felt like I couldn't face you. I didn't stop Grima's return like I promised you. Eventually, I–” She held up her hand, cutting herself off. “ – _Grima_ will come back. It just means someone else is going to suffer as you did, much farther down the line.”

All of this was something Lucina had mulled over many, many times in Robin's absence – though she could have done without the reminder that Grima and Robin were, in a sense, the same being. She stiffened her lip. The sunlight was falling away to nothing, the clouds overhead almost seeming to draw closer the more she delayed responding.

“We both bear the guilt of that choice,” said Lucina slowly.

A flicker of pain crossed Robin's face. Guilt had been the wrong word to use. It only reaffirmed what Robin felt – that it had been a selfish mistake for them to not eliminate Grima for good.

Even if it was true.

“I feared facing you as well,” Lucina said quicker this time, as if this were something she could take back with well-placed words. “I'm used to... foresight. Having a measure of knowledge about what's to come. Even if it didn't always guide me properly, it was... comforting.”

She hung her head, and she glanced up to see Robin's hand reach out for a moment, only for her to pull back. Robin sighed and looked away, back at the tranquil campsite.

“You know – this isn't really... the future I thought we'd have,” Robin said with a self-deprecating chuckle. She rested her hand on her forehead. “What with how Morgan's always talking about how much her parents must have loved her... I thought it'd be easier than this.”

The silence gripped Lucina again. Her throat tightened, and all she could hear was the continued thud of her racing heartbeat in her ears until Robin's footsteps brought her back to reality. If Robin had bid her a quick farewell, she hadn't heard it, and all she could do was watch Robin descend the hill alone. Part of her wanted to call after her, but her words came out as a hoarse whisper.

“...I know, Robin.” The clouds continued to cover the sky. “I know.”


End file.
